4 Things to Consider When Remodelling Your Reception Area

First impressions last. When a new client visits your business premises, they’ll formulate their opinion of your working environment within the first few minutes. Your reception area is key to making visitors feel at home, and it’s also crucial to getting your brand values across.

Achieving all of this in one space can be tricky, but here are five key principles to bear in mind.

1 Set a realistic budget

You don’t necessarily need to kit out your reception area with designer furniture, but you will need to make sure the space is smart and comfortable. Hard chairs, scratched desks, and out-of-date furnishings are going to suggest that your business is cash-strapped.

You may need to budget for alterations to doorways, new carpets, or appropriate lighting. Getting the numbers right means there’s less to surprise you later.

2 Work with the space, not against it

A good reception area is designed to fit the space — not the other way around. Often, a reception area needs careful design to ensure that it feels comfortable and spacious.

Often, the best way to achieve this is to have furniture created for the space. This allows you to fit the appropriate seating into spaces that may not accommodate standard size seats and desks.

Bespoke furniture can also be designed with your company’s colour scheme or branding in mind. When it comes to first impressions, this can give your reception area real wow factor.

3 Consider open plan reception and workspace

Nowadays, businesses are embracing large, open plan spaces, inspired by contemporary coworking initiatives. It’s common for the reception area to be integrated into the workspace around it, which calls for some clever design. Maintaining that connection and free-flowing space is great — but your employees and clients still need privacy.

An open-plan reception area is a primary example of an area that requires office interior design. Your designer can help you to design screens, soundproofing, and privacy features that allow your reception area to be connected to your office without being a privacy risk.

4 Factor in the installation time

Changing your reception area is likely to introduce disruption, and alterations to doorways can present an inconvenience. Your reception area should, ideally, be able to get back to normal as soon as possible.

Rather than enduring extensive disruption, it’s far better to hire a designer that’ll also install your new reception furniture and decor.

A good installer will work with experienced tradespeople, and they’ll offer project management resource so that you don’t have the hassle of overseeing the build. It’s well worth paying for this service to keep the disruption and management to a minimum.

5 Future-proof your reception area

If you compare today’s offices to the offices we used 10 years ago, one thing becomes immediately apparent. We have far more electronic devices now, and they all need to be plugged in somewhere.

This is a really good example of the importance of future-proof design. Once you’ve kitted out your reception area, you really don’t want to have the disruption of doing it all again in a few years’ time. Get the basics right: plenty of power, plenty of light, and a little bit more space than you need now.

Consult the experts

Weaver and Bomfords are Cheshire’s experts in bespoke office furniture and professional office furniture installation. Get in touch with our team and find out how we can support your business.